This stretch has seen may accidents. People there drive very carelessly. Atleast now the roads are better, before it was pathetic.
My dad never used to let me ride beyond RTPS main gate (going towards Raichur).

There can only be one primary reason: one or more of the drivers involved.

If the road is as straight as it looks in the pics, I sure many people are very tempted to drive too fast there

How can you make such a statement after seeing the pics? Even if you were driving at legal speeds (70kph), it would be hard to avoid the huge lumps of earth bang in the middle of the road, especially at night. Simply put, there isn't any valid reason for the lumps of earth to be in the middle of the road, with no warning boards of any kind. They've made a deathtrap.

One should be very clear on where he is driving into. If the path is not clear, driver can always slow down. I see the road is very straight. If the mud was not there and someone overspeeds and hit something or run into cattle, still we will be complaining of road and cattle. I think the driver should drive according to the conditions on road.

Easily: did I not see the pics before making it? Head-on collision is not the fault of one or both of the drivers? Over and over again, posters here blame the conditions, not the drivers. Someone drives into a stationary truck: it's the truck's fault. Someone drives into a wall: it's the wall's fault.

Quote:

Simply put, there isn't any valid reason for the lumps of earth to be in the middle of the road, with no warning boards of any kind. They've made a deathtrap.

Yes, it is wrong to block a road (as so, so often happens in the city) with sand or building material; yes, it is wrong to stop a vehicle on the highway without lights or warning. But sand gets dumped, and even batteries run down, and that doesn't make it necessary to run into it or another vehicle.

I'd have more sympathy if one of the guys ran into the sand. That would be more understandable. If the sand piles were just around a blind corner, that too would be more understandable, but would still indicate excess speed. This appears to be a long straight road: people having accidents in such circumstances should not be driving.

Otherwise, you have a blocked lane on a two-way road. One lane is open, and the person who's lane it is has right of way, but should slow down because of the obvious dangerous situation. One lane is blocked, and the person who's lane it is has no right of way on the wrong side of the road, and should proceed with great caution.

How can you make such a statement after seeing the pics? Even if you were driving at legal speeds (70kph), it would be hard to avoid the huge lumps of earth bang in the middle of the road, especially at night. Simply put, there isn't any valid reason for the lumps of earth to be in the middle of the road, with no warning boards of any kind. They've made a deathtrap.

I don't see a reason to be at a speed where one can't stop on sighting danger. What one sees clearly should be more than the safe braking distance.

I am not saying the condition of the road is at no fault. Given that most of the roads in this country are this way, it is in ones own interest to be defensive!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Easily: did I not see the pics before making it? Head-on collision is not the fault of one or both of the drivers? Over and over again, posters here blame the conditions, not the drivers. Someone drives into a stationary truck: it's the truck's fault. Someone drives into a wall: it's the wall's fault.

Easily: did I not see the pics before making it? Head-on collision is not the fault of one or both of the drivers? Over and over again, posters here blame the conditions, not the drivers. Someone drives into a stationary truck: it's the truck's fault. Someone drives into a wall: it's the wall's fault.

A driver paying a large amount of money to the government as tax should NOT have to drive in fear of unmarked manmade obstacles. I would have put the blame solely on the drivers if the road had been half decent. If this had happened on a broken road, or had the obstacles been indicated by any form of signage, I'd be right by your side. But in this case, putting the blame solely on the drivers as you have done, is just giving the authorities a free pass to be negligent.

I agree that conditions are blamed too often in this thread, but I'm not gonna blame the drivers simply to be different, or because I don't want to be part of the herd.

Quote:

Yes, it is wrong to block a road (as so, so often happens in the city) with sand or building material; yes, it is wrong to stop a vehicle on the highway without lights or warning. But sand gets dumped, and even batteries run down, and that doesn't make it necessary to run into it or another vehicle.

If it's understandable that sand gets dumped and that batteries run down, but it is also reasonable to expect a warning. Not many drivers can react quickly enough to random piles of rocks/dirt on the road. I've been in a similar situation, on a bike, and I took a corner, flew over the pile of earth and miraculously managed to land, keep the bike upright and not fall. They had the signage that time, only it was put up after the corner!

We have no clear idea whether this happened during day or night, what the traffic was, whether there were people and equipment working on the road sides and on the piles of sand etc. All we can see is that even after the accident, the negligence has continued. The piles of earth are sill on the roads, and there still isn't any signage.

Simply put, if these guys had crashed head-on while trying to overtake, I'd put the blame solely on the drivers. As it is, the only thing I can fault the drivers for is not being skilled enough to make a split second decision when faced with an unmarked obstacle. Sure, they could have slowed down, jammed the brakes, but we're saying all this while sitting comfortably in front of our computers. The most common avoidance maneuver for the average driver is to swerve around a sudden obstacle, an obstacle that should not have been there in the first place without proper warnings.

What you say may have some relevance to good governance, but it has little relevance to good driving. Grumble about the negligence of the authorities at election time, not at driving time. We drive in the conditions we have, not the conditions we want.

I am not trivialising this important thread, but just providing an analogy:

"A batsman in cricket is said to be good only if he is bats well on all types of tracks, including the dusty turning tracks of India, apart from the well manicured tracks in the rest of the world". So it is with driving.

The Mud/Sand dumps on the right side are dumped after the accident. When I was leaving the place after taking photographs, one truck came and dumped. One can notice the mud/sand is leveled on the right side after the incident. Not sure about the left side though.
I haven't noticed any tire marks on either side of the road. My view after observing the spot is, one driver is involved for sure.

This is an arrow straight road where you can see ahead for atleast one km if not more. If you can't drive here, in the interest of the public at large, better not get behind the steering wheel. Any tomboy worth his salt can get behind the steering wheel and pump the A pedal. How well you read the road is what seperates the men from the boys.

This is a front offset collision. It pretty obvious that one of the drivers was not sticking to his lane. Hope there was no loss of life involved.